Photos from the South Canyon 20th year commemoration

South Canyon Fire

These photos were taken by Bill Gabbert July 6, 2014 in Glenwood Springs, Colorado at the South Canyon Fire 20th Anniversary Commemoration.

South Canyon Fire

Boise Pipe and Drum
Boise Pipes and Drums
Honor Guards and Color Guards
Honor Guards and Color Guards on the stage.
Honor Guard and Color Guard
Honor Guards and Color Guards were at the commemoration.
The Prineville Hotshots
The Prineville Hotshots.
streamers smoke jumpers
A smokejumper aircraft dropped streamers, presumably 14 of them, near the end of the commemoration.
Kari Greer
Kari Greer, a well-known photographer of wildland fires, with her fireline tools.

A Week to Remember

Week to remember

In addition to remembering the 19 members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who were killed a year ago today, this Week to Remember will include a commemoration to honor the 14 firefighters who died 20 years ago, July 6, 1994, on Storm King Mountain while fighting the South Canyon Fire.

The public is invited to the event for the South Canyon Fire which will be on July 6 from 4:45 p.m. until 6 p.m in Two Rivers Park in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

Those 14 firefighters were: Kathi Beck, Tamera Bickett, Scott Blecha, Levi Brinkley, Robert Browning, Doug Dunbar, Terri Hagen, Bonnie Holtby, Rob Johnson, Jon Kelso, Don Mackey, Roger Roth, Jim Thrash, and Richard Tyler.

More information about the event in Glenwood Springs.

Colorado: Eightmile fire

(UPDATED at 11 p.m. MDT, June 29, 2014)

Map of Eightmile Fire
Map of the Eightmile Fire. The red line was the perimeter at 1 a.m. June 29. The yellow line is from about 26 hours earlier.

The Eightmile Fire was less active on Saturday than it was on Friday when it grew from about an acre to almost 500 acres. It started on Monday from a lightning strike and is being managed, rather than totally suppressed, as a confine/contain fire. Early Sunday morning a mapping flight determined that it had grown by about 29 acres over the last 26 hours, to 524 acres. The Incident Management Team is calling it 25 percent contained.

The pre-evacuation notice for the 16 residence in Red Rocks subdivision remains in effect. On Saturday aircraft dropped 140,253 gallons of water and 71,315 gallons of retardant. Firefighters are constructing fireline in one Division on the fire, and are “continuing to seek opportunities and scout areas for tactical options” on the other three.

While they are deciding what to do, the area is under a Red Flag Warning from Sunday at noon until 7 p.m. for strong winds, low relative humidity, and dry fuels. The winds should be out of the west at 10 to 20 mph with the relative humidity at 10 percent. Monday will be a little cooler, less breezy, with a 20 percent chance of rain. **** (UPDATED at 8:48 a.m. MDT, June 28, 2014)

Map of Eightmile Fire
Map of Eightmile Fire at 10:30 p.m. MDT, June 27, 2014.

The Eightmile Fire 7 miles northeast of Cañon City, Colorado was mapped Friday night at 496 acres. It started from a lighting strike on Monday, June 23 and on Friday morning was still only about one acre in size. The fire is just east of Phantom Canyon Road (67), east of Eightmile Creek, and six miles west of Highway 115. It is burning on Bureau of Land Management land primarily in a Wilderness Study Area. The BLM is not totally suppressing the fire, but instead is employing a Confine/Contain strategy. Friday night the BLM issued this evacuation advisory:

The Fremont County Sheriff, in cooperation with Eightmile Fire managers, has issued a pre-evacuation notice for 16 residences in the Red Rocks Subdivision. Specifically, the residents on the west side of County Road 132 from mile marker 5 to mile marker 9.5. Residents are encouraged to be prepared to evacuate should the need arise. Again, this is a pre-evacuation notice only.

3D Map of Eightmile Fire
3D Map of Eightmile Fire, looking East at 10:30 p.m. MDT, June 27, 2014.

Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team B with Incident Commander Dan Dallas assumed command of the Eightmile Fire at 6 a.m. MDT, Saturday, June 28. Continue reading “Colorado: Eightmile fire”

Colorado County Sheriff releases report on Black Forest Fire

Black Forest Fire
Black Forest Fire. Photo from EPSO report.

Terry Maketa, the sheriff of Colorado’s El Paso County, has released a report about the Black Forest Fire, the third report about the fire by agencies in the county. In June of 2013 the fire claimed two lives, 14,000 acres, and 486 homes near Colorado Springs, Colorado.

The state is one of a few that make the local county sheriff responsible for fire suppression on non-federal lands, and Sheriff Maketa made sure that his photograph was prominently displayed at the top of page two in the report.

The Sheriff has been extremely critical of Black Forest Fire District Chief Bob Harvey who was the Incident Commander during the early stages of the fire. Sheriff Maketa has given several blistering interviews to the media criticizing Chief Harvey’s actions that day. His main point was that he thinks the Chief should have turned over the fire to him or the county much earlier. Two other reports have been commissioned and released by the Black Forest Fire District Board. One of them concluded that about two hours after the initial dispatch Chief Harvey turned over the fire to County Deputy Fire Marshall Scott Campbell, a Type 3 Incident Commander. The second report by the Fire District contained more than 2,000 pages and can be downloaded, but it is a HUGE 345 MB file.

The Sheriff’s 127-page report points out a number of areas for improvement, including

  • communications,
  • non-interoperable radio systems, (has a fire report ever NOT listed communications as a problem?),
  • fire radio traffic and dispatching overwhelming routine dispatching,
  • management of information technology, and
  • reconnaissance.

Apparently there were two Incident Commanders — one for the fire and one for law enforcement. This was a violation of a core Incident Command System principle. The report suggested additional ICS training and incorporating law enforcement into the fire command structure in future incidents, such as making them a functional Branch.

The Sheriff’s report took several shots at the handling of the fire by the Black Forest Fire Protection District during the first two hours, including the report on conditions and the transition to the County.

When Sheriff Maketa introduced his fire report at a news conference this week, he deflected several questions from reporters about the recent unanimous vote by the El Paso County commissioners to ask him to resign over allegations of sexual impropriety, discrimination, creating a hostile workplace, violating civil rights, and more. The commissioners can’t force the sheriff to resign since he is an elected official. Maketa has said in spite of the allegations, he will serve out the remainder of his term which ends later this year.

An interesting side note from the report:

The Food Unit utilized Yellow Stone Kelly’s catering starting on June 13, however they had difficulties meeting the contract serving requirements and requested to be replaced. Interim meals were provided for dinner on June 16 and breakfast and lunch on June 17, with the assistance of local restaurants. On June 17, Big Sky #4 catering arrived at the [Incident Command Post] and began providing meals throughout the duration of the incident.

Incident Management Team personnel helped serve those three meals on June 16 and 17.

Black Forest Fire
Black Forest Fire. Photo from EPSO report.

Cost of Colorado wildfires

Colorado, insured losses from wildfires

When lawmakers and citizens refuse to adequately fund wildfire prevention, mitigation, and suppression programs, sometimes they don’t consider the unintended consequences of their actions. The graphic above, by InsuranceDay.com, illustrates the insured losses in just one state, Colorado, from wildfires since 2002. The numbers do not include the costs of suppressing the fires or the rehabilitation of the burned areas. For example, the $9.8 million spent on stopping the Black Forest Fire is not included.. If the Waldo Canyon, Black Forest, Fourmile Canyon, or High Park fires had been stopped when they were small, the suppression and insurance costs averted would have equaled what it would take to build a professional quality fire management organization — many times over.

Colorado has taken some steps in the last year to improve their response to wildfires, building a small aerial firefighting fleet, and organizing in some areas on the front range to more aggressively implement mutual aid strategies.

And we don’t mean to pick on Colorado — it is just the low-hanging fruit, the state that best illustrates the fallacy of save money now, but increase the costs 10-fold later. The federal government as well as some other states and local governments fall into the same trap.

In 2012 we wrote:

Dr. Gabbert’s prescription for keeping new fires from becoming megafires:

 

Rapid initial attack with overwhelming force using both ground and air resources, arriving within the first 10 to 30 minutes when possible.

Some of us remember when this was standard operating procedure, at least in the federal government. CAL FIRE still understands and practices this strategy.

Tumbleweeds and fire

Today we ran across two references to the problems that tumbleweeds can cause for firefighters. KRDO in Colorado Springs, Colorado published a video report about how a vegetation fire in El Paso County came close to igniting piles of tumbleweeds, and interviewed a firefighter and residents about the issues associated with the plants that pile up in windrows against fences and structures.

And later we found this photo on Twitter, showing a firefighter assessing what to do about a huge pile of tumbleweeds in Picture Canyon.

Regular readers of Wildfire Today will remember the video we posted in March of tumbleweeds caught up in a large fire whirl during a prescribed fire at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal near Denver: